


these walls we build and call them home

by supinetothestars



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Gen, Imperialism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lu Ten (Avatar) Lives, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26186581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supinetothestars/pseuds/supinetothestars
Summary: It has been eight months since the death of Crown Prince Lu Ten when a man appears at the war-camps near the Earth Kingdom border, bedraggled and wounded and with a heavy limp, and asks to be taken to see the royal family.It has been nine months since the death of Crown Prince Lu Ten when a man returns to the steps of the palace for the first time in years, with shorn hair and scars littering his body and a permanently twisted leg, and meets his father in a tight embrace.-[Or: Lu Ten survives, and his time away from home has changed his perspective.]
Relationships: Azula & Lu Ten, Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Iroh & Lu Ten, Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Lu Ten & Zuko
Comments: 92
Kudos: 403





	1. Chapter 1

Zuko is ten years old when Prince Lu Ten vanishes.

The news trickles through the palace slowly, like ice crystals across a lake - spreading so gradually that by the time it reaches Zuko, the novelty has already grown so cold that he hears it in passing. His tutor casually mentions it in a conversation; he seems to believe Zuko is already aware.

“You ought to study harder, Prince Zuko,” the tutor scolds, after Zuko zones out so entirely during a lesson on navigation that he fails to realize when he’s been asked a question. “This material will be important once you are leading soldiers on the warfront. Who knows - perhaps Prince Lu Ten will find use for it, given his disappearance.”

Zuko sits up ramrod straight so quickly it scrapes his back against the chair. “Lu Ten’s disappeared?”

The tutor gives him a long, somewhat alarmed look over his spectacles, then clears his throat abruptly. “That’s _Prince_ Lu Ten to you, Prince Zuko,” he scolds. “Now - if you’ll continue at line one hundred and fourty-three of your educational scroll, we will proceed by copying down the paragraph on seasonal constellation patterns -”

And that’s the end of that.

Zuko asks his mother, later, because only she can be trusted neither to lie nor scold him for asking. She is sitting on a bench by the rose gardens, reading from a scroll of poetry, which she sets aside as he approaches.

“Zuko, dear,” she says, “come read this poetry with me; the roses smell lovely today.”

Zuko jumps straight to the point. “Mama,” he asks, “did something happen to Lu Ten?”

His mother looks startled, and a little upset. “Why,” she asks, “did someone say something to you?”

“One of my tutors.” 

“Oh.” She looks distressed, and sets aside her scroll to scoot forward on the bench and hold one of his hands in her own. “Zuko, I had hoped you wouldn’t have to find out like this. I don’t want you to worry needlessly.”

“Just tell me, Mama,” Zuko whines.

“Zuko, your cousin -” She takes a breath. “Your cousin Lu Ten has gone missing from the battlefield. He was sent to lead a small troop of scouting soldiers through an Earth Kingdom village and hasn’t returned.”

Zuko stares at her. Something is welling in his chest, anxiety brimming and clenching around his lungs. He doesn’t know what to say, so he just says “Oh,” but it comes out wrong - small, and timid, as though he’s scared.

He’s not scared. He’s worried. There’s a difference - fear is something in which only cowards indulge, something that gets soldiers jailed for fleeing the front lines. Zuko is no coward. He is simply worried, for the Prince of the Fire Nation and the second in line to the throne, and there is a difference. 

But right now, the worry is overwhelming, stifling, and Zuko feels a slow shiver start in his chest and travel to his fingertips. He balls his hands into fists and stares resolutely at the ground. 

“Oh, Zuko,” his mother says, voice broken, and she gathers in her arms and lets him shake. 

Three weeks later, a surviving soldier from his troop makes it back to the warfront. His camp was raided by the Earth Kingdom, he reports: he fled, rather than stay and help his fellow troops, but the enemy soldiers were fighting with intent to kill. He has no indication that they left survivors. 

This sole survivor is executed for fleeing and abandoning Prince Lu Ten to his fate.

One month later, Lu Ten is announced dead. Uncle Iroh returns for the funeral, for the honorary procession of an empty coffin through the Capital City streets: Zuko walks in the procession behind his father and cries the entire way, flanked by armoured soldiers and a crowd of strangers in mourning for a boy they never knew. He wipes his tears before his father can see them - it is not fitting for a member of the Fire Nation royal family to show such weakness before his people. 

Everything changes. 

Iroh leaves the war front and does not return. Zuko rarely sees him, though when he does grace the halls of the palace he always has a smile and a kind word in store for Zuko. His eyes, however, are often red at the edges, and his gait is heavy. He is unhappy. What’s worse - he is dishonoured, for he has left the war front with his job unfinished. Like the survivor who was killed for fleeing the battle instead of saving the prince, Iroh has disgraced his legacy by not burning Ba Sing Se to ashes. Azula says so, anyway - that Iroh is weak, and unfit to rule. Mother scolds her for such words, seeming angry, but all Zuko can feel at her words is a memory of the way Iroh looked at the funeral. Like the fire inside him had been snuffed, and all that was left was cold ash.

Zuko cannot imagine.

  
  
  


Zuko’s mother visits him in the middle of the night. She tells him that she loves him, and to always remember who he is. As she turns to leave, she’s crying, and barely lit by the moonlight filtering through the windows. The anxiety returns: hotter, this time, as though every moment it goes unaddressed Zuko is left singed. He chases her through the halls, but finds only Azula with her sharp taunts and stinging words: _Grandfather is dead_ , she tells him. _He wanted you dead, so Mother has left._

_Azula lies,_ Zuko tells himself. _Azula always lies._

But he stumbles upon his father in the courtyard, and finds within his deep, stinging well of anxiety some semblance of bravery - enough to shout at Ozai in his rage, to demand answers. He asks where his mother is gone, and is met merely with a turned back and cold dismissal. 

Zuko returns to his quarters, folds upon himself, and begins to cry.

  
  
  
  


Ozai is crowned Fire Lord, and Zuko Crown Prince. It is the last wish of Azulon, or so he claims: the final request of a dying emperor. It cannot be refused.

Iroh could contest. He might even win, were he fast enough to dodge Ozai’s flame in an Agni Kai. But he makes no voice of protest. He makes no voice at all, truly, but to pull Zuko into a tight hug when they pass in a courtyard.

“I am sorry,” Iroh tells him, voice grieved. He does not say for what. Zuko lets himself be held regardless - it’s the first time anyone has touched him since his mother embraced him in the moonlit carpet of his quarters, tears streaming down her face. 

  
  
  


As Crown Prince, Zuko’s responsibility to his tutors grows exponentially. His teachers were always ruthless, but now - as he bears the weight of the future throne on his shoulders, yet still is overshadowed by his sister’s unbridled talent - they drive him further, farther, longer. His Firebending teachers burn him when he misses a step, just enough to sting but never leave a mark. He leaves each practice exhausted and worn thin, ready to collapse. Each sword fighting session leaves him grazed at the edges, with razor-thin cuts down his arms or rips in his clothing: the boundaries grow further away the older he gets. With every month that goes by, his instructors can push him closer to shattering.

Zuko spends his hours off the training mat pouring over endless educational scrolls, historical accounts, or battlefield maps. His teachers are determined to teach him strategy, whatever the cost - to distill in him the importance of maintaining the warfront. 

After all, his single most important job as Fire Lord will be to finish the war, to push the borders, to end what Iroh was unable to complete. As soon as he is old enough to no longer stagger under the weight of his armor, he will take up the burden that killed Lu Ten and shattered Iroh to the core, and travel to the front lines to fight alongside his people. It is an honor to lead soldiers, even to die alongside them. Lu Ten’s death was a misfortune, not a tragedy, for he - unlike so many unlucky souls - had the good fortune to die an honorable and glorious death for the cause of the Fire Nation. 

This is Lu Ten’s legacy, for the nine months that follow his funeral. A soldier boy, a glorious warrior, a martyr held as representative of all those unnamed soldiers killed for the glory of the Fire Nation. In honouring his memory, the people of the Fire Nation honor those they lost for the sake of the war - and so they honor him, and do so endlessly. Rarely is his name not uttered by those outside without a bowing of the head, a muttering of _may he rest in peace_. 

This reverence feels strange, to Zuko. Foreign. For who is this glorious, honorable soldier who died for the glory of the Fire Nation? Who is the perfect epitome of regal power, this eternally young warrior whose image is beloved by all soldiers to walk in his footsteps along the indestructible walls of Ba Sing Se? Zuko cannot parse it, in his mind: to him, Lu Ten is still a teenager. A boy, really, leaving for the battlefield at sixteen, when Zuko was only seven. 

The most startling difference between the Lu Ten that lurks in the shadowy memories of Zuko’s mind and the Lu Ten worshipped by the Fire Nation people is the fear. Lu Ten was always afraid of war, even as he’d donned his armor and prepared to leave his home forever to wage the war on Ba Sing Se. His entire body had been shivering, when he’d knelt and pulled Zuko in for one last hug. Tears had been streaming down his face. He had faced his destiny, certainly, but he had not done so fearlessly. He’d stumbled, sometimes, while training, and once had burned his hand so badly he’d sobbed with pain for the entire courtyard to hear. These were not the traits of a perfect soldier. These were not the actions of a stone-faced warrior. 

There are two Lu Tens, Zuko comes to realize: the Lu Ten that haunts the streets of Capital City, inspiring tragedy and patriotism in the hearts of citizens he’d never even met; and the Lu Ten that held Zuko close the day of his leaving and let the both of them cry. The Lu Ten that Zuko remembers was soft, and kind, and had a fierceness unimaginable even to the likes of those who had sobbed at the sight of his empty coffin that day of the funeral. The Lu Ten that Zuko remembers was young and scared and had a laugh that was warm like summer wind. He was talented, teaching Zuko to fight with wooden swords long before anyone let him anywhere near a metal blade, and he was dedicated - spending hours poring over his fighting stances, his strategy scrolls.

He was a good soldier. But he was also human. And Zuko misses him so much it hurts, like a sting deep inside his chest. As though if he thinks about the loss too long or too deeply, the stinging flame of grief that scalds him will spread and set alight his very being. Where Iroh was left deflated by Lu Ten’s death, his spirit snuffed out, Zuko feels scalded at the very thought.

He didn’t understand, at first, how Iroh could be so utterly ruined by the loss of his only son. Zuko didn’t understand how the grief could sit so heavily on his uncle’s shoulders that the burden was visible in his every step, weighing him into the dirt. But the longer he lives without his mother, without Lu Ten, with only the searing flame in his chest and a few blurry memories and a nation of grief serving to remind him they ever existed, the more he thinks he understands.

  
  
  


It has been eight months since the death of Crown Prince Lu Ten when a man appears at the war-camps near the Earth Kingdom border, bedraggled and wounded and with a heavy limp, and asks to be taken to see the royal family.

It has been nine months since the death of Crown Prince Lu Ten when a man returns to the steps of the palace for the first time in years, with shorn hair and scars littering his body and a permanently twisted leg, and meets his father in a tight embrace. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ty so much for reading!! comments are treasured ❤️ 
> 
> endless thanks to my beta fensandmarshes to whom my life is owed


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lu Ten needs to be taken to the infirmary. He’s weak from exhaustion, and his ribs jut out from his too-skinny chest at an uncomfortable angle, and he has to lean on Iroh in order to embrace him. Zuko knows because he watches, standing to the side of the vast marble palace pavilion on which the reunion is staged. He has come straight from firebending practice, having abandoned his lessons at the sound of the servants shouting the Prince is alive, the Prince has returned loud enough that their shrill excitement was audible all the way from the training courtyards.

Lu Ten needs to be taken to the infirmary. He’s weak from exhaustion, and his ribs jut out from his too-skinny chest at an uncomfortable angle, and he has to lean on Iroh in order to embrace him. Zuko knows because he watches, standing to the side of the vast marble palace pavilion on which the reunion is staged. He has come straight from firebending practice, having abandoned his lessons at the sound of the servants shouting  _ the Prince is alive, the Prince has returned _ loud enough that their shrill excitement was audible all the way from the training courtyards.

His arm is stinging from where his instructor had singed him, just above his wrist, after he stumbled on one of the basic stance drills and nearly set the grass ablaze. He rubs at it absently, as he watches Iroh clasp his dead son close in the crisp and sweltering summer heat. A dozen odd servants stand about the pavilion, keeping respectful distance even as each stares at Lu Ten as though he’s some ghoul come to topple the palace pillars.

For a moment, Zuko had thought Lu Ten must be a vengeful ghost. A spirit made bitter by the injustice of his death, returned to haunt the land of the living - perhaps he might even be after Iroh, as the general who had returned to the palace and left his killers unbeaten. But now, watching the way Lu Ten buries his head in Iroh’s shoulder and shakes the same way he did when first leaving for the battlefield, Zuko finds it impossible to believe the spectre of a man before him is anything but a genuine, if one who seems to be precariously close to achieving a second funeral in the span of a year.

Iroh pulls back, finally, and takes Lu Ten’s face in his hands. He is crying unabashedly, tears of joy running down his face regardless any judgement risked by the presence of palace staff. 

Zuko finally gets a proper look at his cousin’s face. It’s the same sharp features, same square jawline and rich brown eyes - but with his hair shorn close to his head and his armor gone, he looks smaller, somehow. Less of a soldier and more of a boy, even if he’s in his twenties. He’d always been tall, but with the effects of famine slimming his frame, sharpening his edges till each rib juts like a knife-point through his ragged, oversized linen shirt, he looks completely unlike the imposing, muscular figure who had mowed down legions of sparring partners in the training ring. 

Zuko feels dizzy, as though the world is swaying beneath his feet. He has the vague sense that what he’s watching isn’t  _ real _ \- it  _ can’t _ be real, not truly, not after all those months of mourning and all the innumerable candles lit before innumerable shrines. Lu Ten was killed, was slaughtered by Earth Kingdom soldiers in a cowardly and dishonorable ambush; so the story has been written, and repeated, and spread like a wildfire among the Fire Nation people. If Lu Ten is not dead, then what was it for? The crying behind his coffin, the heavy weight to Iroh’s step? 

Zuko feels a faint breeze ruffle his clothing, doing little to halt the sweltering, dry summer heat. A cold trail of sweat trickles down his spine, and he observes his own discomfort distantly, as though from above. The scene before him plays out like an act in a play put on by particularly over dramatic theatre troupe, and he has the bizarre urge to laugh that’s followed almost as quickly by a burning like acid to his eyes, as tears well up against his will.

Lu Ten sways precariously. Iroh drops his hand from his son’s face and steps around to help Lu Ten stand, propping him up with an arm around his waist on the side of his seemingly apparently wounded leg. He says something about going inside, to an infirmary, and with his support Lu Ten continues towards the palace doors. His eyes meet over Zuko’s, as he goes, and pass over him the same way they do every other member of the palace staff clustered about the pavilion. 

There’s not a hint of recognition in his face. 

\--

Azula returns home the next day. She had been visiting Mai, who was living with her parents in a luxurious countryside mansion just outside Capital City, but at her father’s beck and call she returns to the palace without knowing the reason for her summons until her arrival: it wouldn’t do to spread the news of Lu Ten’s survival, just yet. Not when he is weak and crippled and confined to a bed wherein the palace’s top medical expert attends his every need. 

When Azula finds out about her cousin’s survival she is furious. She terrorizes the training grounds like a spirit on the warpath, wreaking havoc on everything that dares cross her path. The servants seem to sense the danger of interrupting her, for they have the wisdom to steer clear of the training grounds.

Zuko has no such common sense.

He watches her from the sidelines, for a while, observing the patterns in the smoke that whisps from the grass she’s set ablaze. Up close, Azula in a fury is a force of nature, a storm of hateful hellfire that would as soon burn Zuko to ash as set alight a bush. From a distance, it’s just a pretty light-show. 

Anyone with half a brain would keep their distance, stay to watch the pretty light show rather than risking their neck. But Zuko is curious, his interest piqued in the display before him, as though he’s watching some freak natural phenomena. Azula, for the first time Zuko can remember in who knows how many years - perhaps since she was a toddler, throwing toy solders at Zuko whenever he demanded that she’d lost their games of make believe - has lost her control. Here, in the training field, as she blasts a dozen mannequins to ash and dust in a furious pillar of flame, Azula’s mask has slipped. Her facade has begun to crack.

She is showing emotion. Real, genuine emotion, not the flashes of irritation she gets whenever a training session knocks so much as a hair out of place. His nine-year-old sister has been the epitome of perfect control for as long as she could understand the sneers of contempt Father throws Zuko’s way whenever he lets his composure slip. She was always a force of nature, but her hurricane was wound close to her chest. Even her rages are calculated and deliberate, shows of power designed to frighten her nannies or her tutors or whichever poor servant has the poor luck to displease her. In many ways, Zuko thinks her more savvy in the game of power than her father, who so often has let his wells of anger spill out in unintended and dangerous ways. Fire Lord Ozai is a wildfire to Azula’s lightning strike; he is raw and untamed power where she is all deliberate, precisely designed displays of superiority.

Something about Lu Ten’s return has caused that mask to slip. Zuko, watching the Earth Kingdom helmets propped upon the practice dummies crack and burn under the heat of Azula’s furious flame, dares not wonder what happened to whichever poor servant was sent to pass along the news. But this wary cautiousness is not enough to dissuade his curiosity, at seeing a side of his sister he’d thought had been quashed by years of Ozai’s gaze. So after a few minutes of looking for patterns in the smoke, he stands from the courtyard wall and approaches center of the training field.

Azula is busy round-house kicking a burning mannequin, so she doesn’t notice his approach. It’s not until he’s standing a few feet behind her, feet planted in a cautious stance of defense, that she catches sight of him in her peripheral vision halfway through a pressure point attack on the training dummy’s left temple and whirls around. 

There’s flame swirling around her hand, enough that the sudden movement causes it to flash and swell. It gives her an unsettling look, as if she’s actually alight. The flame casts the rage etched into her features into clearer view, which makes her look eerily young - almost like the nine year old she really is.

“Zuko,” she snarls, and extinguishes the flame with a snap of her fist. “You’re interrupting my training session.”

“Oh,” Zuko says, voice small despite itself. “Sorry. You looked kind of upset, is all.”

“I’m not  _ upset _ ,” she hisses. “I’m  _ trying  _ to perfect this bending form, so for Agni’s sake, if everyone could just leave me alone for five whole minutes before I truly and actually burn someone’s face from their  _ skull _ , that would be excellent.”

“You heard about Lu Ten,” Zuko recognizes, because apparently he has a death wish.

Azula’s eyes widen and then abruptly narrow in one smooth movement. Her features cool; the rage, quite deliberately, is wiped from her face. She becomes the picture of cold, irritated nonchalance. “I have, yes,” she says. “It’s about time the god-damned fool figured out how to use a compass. One would think he could have learned in a sooner time than nine months, but then, Iroh didn’t give him the best genes to work with, I suppose-”

“Shut up,” Zuko snaps, rage flaring in his chest. “You’re just bitter because you know you’re not the star child anymore. With Lu Ten back you won’t be worshipped as the prodigy of the Fire Nation any longer, and you’re mad about it-”

“Does it  _ matter _ ?” She interrupts. Her fists clench. “It doesn’t to you, anyway - you’re still the family disappointment, Zuko, still the failure. Just ask Father, he gets this look on his face every time you come up - like he can’t bear to think about you. But then, I suppose you wouldn’t know very much about what Father likes, would you? Given he can’t stand you to be in his  _ presence.” _

To Zuko’s utter dismay, tears begin to spring in his eyes, blurring his view of Azula into a distorted mess of red and yellow. He looks away, wiping his eyes, and hears her snort with disdain.

“Oh, you’re  _ crying _ over it now, are you? Just run along to darling Lu Ten now, won’t you - I’m sure he’ll hold you close and tell you what a  _ good little boy _ you are, just like Mother would’ve, if you hadn’t killed her.”   
  


“SHUT  _ UP,”  _ Zuko shouts back, and realizes his voice has risen to a shaky, tear-filled scream. He can’t remember why he came here, anyway - what purpose could it bring to visit Azula, other than to provide her a chance to remind him of his inferiority? He’s struck by the sudden urge to do exactly as she says, and run to visit Lu Ten. But he remembers the way his cousin’s eyes had glided over him in the pavilion, and the imposing, red-armoured guards blocking the door of Lu Ten’s quarters, and lets the thought slip from his mind. 

Azula’s hands are aflame again, flickering red-hot fire lapping dangerously at her sleeves. She takes a few steps forward, until she’s standing right before Zuko, then takes a flaming hand and shoves him backwards with all her might. He falls backwards into the grass, hard, and feels his chest sting at the hand-shaped burn left in his tunic. 

“Just  _ LEAVE _ ,” Azula screams.

So Zuko does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! comments make my week <33


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lu Ten tracks Zuko down three days after his return. He’s not yet allowed out of his quarters, and Zuko hasn’t visited. Part of him wants to visit, wishes to hear his cousin’s voice again: it feels as though it’s been years since he’s heard that laugh, raucous and inviting, or the snicker that snuck into Lu Ten’s voice whenever he was in on a joke. The same grieving silence that had haunted the palace since the day Lu Ten had left for war feels louder, all the sudden, as though the emptiness is humming in every hall and untouched courtyard.

Lu Ten tracks Zuko down three days after his return. He’s not yet allowed out of his quarters, and Zuko hasn’t visited. Part of him wants to visit, wishes to hear his cousin’s voice again: it feels as though it’s been years since he’s heard that laugh, raucous and inviting, or the snicker that snuck into Lu Ten’s voice whenever he was in on a joke. The same grieving silence that had haunted the palace since the day Lu Ten had left for war feels louder, all the sudden, as though the emptiness is humming in every hall and untouched courtyard.

Zuko goes to train. The practice field is mostly decimated from Azula’s tantrum the day before, patches of grass still cracked and blackened, but he manages to find a mostly untouched patch near the center and run through his broadsword drills. He falls into a familiar rhythm, like that of a dance: sidestep, lunge, par, sweep. A waltz with an imaginary foe, every brush of wind against his ankle an imagined blade come to slice him down. 

Where Firebending leaves Zuko feeling exhausted, off-rhythm, like every bit of his energy has just been set alight like gas in a lantern, sword fighting comes easy. Naturally. There’s no hot searing down his arms, if he misses an attack and catches his sleeves alight; there’s no instructor there to singe his fingertips if he stumbles in a simple drill. Master Piandao had never cut him had he misstepped, never left his accidental injuries untreated as punishment for a mistake. His training methods had been exhausting, but not cruel.

Piandao is gone, now, to where Zuko has no clue; but the centered calm that broadswords bring him is still there, like a soft hum inside his chest that quiets the roaring silence of Lu Ten’s absence. Zuko feels the cold autumn air on his wrists as he whisks through the exercises, feels his muscles burning and his exhaustion creeping slowly through his bones, like water soaking into rags, and for a precious few minutes, believes himself to be at peace.

There’s a crunching sound behind him, of someone trodding on a burnt patch of grass, and Zuko stumbles to a halt halfway through a complicated roll maneuver and staggers to his feet. Turning, his swords clasped limply in his hands, he shifts to face the intruder.

He freezes, his entire body going still. The pleasant hum of relaxation is gone; he feels shaky, all the sudden, as though standing on the edge of a cliff. The soft brush of the wind on his bare feet begins to seem more like wind bracing to plunge him off the edge. 

Lu Ten is standing there, in slender-fitting maroon servant’s robes. His arms are crossed across his chest and he’s got that insufferable smirk on his face, like he knows something Zuko doesn’t, and the wind is ruffling the short-shorn hair across his forehead, and - 

Before Zuko even knows that he’s done, the broadswords are dropped to the ground, and he’s running at his cousin. There’s a momentary wobble, as he collides with Lu Ten full force, and then his cousin sweeps his arms around Zuko and holds him tight, warm against the chill of the field.

Lu Ten just holds him, for a long moment, and Zuko lets him. When he finally pulls back, he realizes with abject horror that there are tears streaming down his face.

“I’m sorry,” he sniffles, wiping his face with his sleeve. “I’m sorry, I - I’m not meant to cry-”

“That’s alright, Zuko,” Lu Ten murmurs, and he’s got this smile on his face like Zuko’s the entire world. “That’s alright. I’ve missed you _so much_ , little cousin. The war-fields are hell without you and ‘Zula, always running amok in the courtyards - oh, Agni, I’ve missed the courtyards, too.”

“It was so quiet,” Zuko says, but it comes out as half a sob. He struggles to continue. “It was so quiet, after you left, and - they made us have a funeral for you, with a casket and everything.”

“I know,” Lu Ten says, and he wraps Zuko in his arms again. “I know. I’m so sorry, Zuko. _I’m so sorry._ ”

And just like that, he’s back.

~~

There’s no point to standing in a field any longer, so the two of them trek back to the palace. There’s a table under one of the pavilions, right by a patch of honey-scented flowers, with a pai-sho board built into the mahogany surface. 

“I’m terrible at this game,” Lu Ten sighs, but he takes a seat regardless. Zuko sinks onto the wide stool across from him and crosses his legs, wrapping his arms around his chest.

“We don’t have to play,” Zuko mumbles, staring fixedly at the pai sho tiles. 

There’s a momentary silence before Lu Ten’s voice returns, a bit gentler this time. “You want to talk about anything, Zuko?”

Zuko pries his gaze from the game board to meet his cousin’s compassionate stare. He feels prickly, all over, uncomfortable: this isn’t a dynamic he’s used to. He can handle anger, or dismissal, or disappointment; pity, even, from some more sympathetic servants - but this raw compassion, the way Lu Ten’s emotions seem to shift with Zuko’s own moods - as though every pang that crosses Zuko’s face is felt by him as well - is foreign, unknown. He’s crossing new territory, and doesn’t know where to step.

“You were gone for a long time,” Zuko says, tentative. “Were you taken prisoner?”

Lu Ten hums. “At first,” he says, “but I broke out after, oh, a week.”

“It’s just that I was studying navigation the other day,” Zuko explains, shifting his gaze back to the pai sho board, “and Master Anju said that it would only take a month or so to get back to civilization from most of the warfront camps.”

“Oh, Zuko,” Lu Ten says, and he sounds broken, jagged, like his voice is cutting itself on its own sharp edges. “I tried, little cousin. I swear to you I tried to come back to you and ‘Zula and Father. But the Earth kingdom is at _war_ , and it took care - were I to be caught, I would be jailed, or worse, and transportation between cities is difficult when the country is already torn to shreds.”

“The Earth kingdom isn’t torn to shreds,” Zuko objects, “not when they’re able to hold off our attacks for so long - even Uncle Iroh couldn’t break in to Ba Sing Se!”  
  


Lu Ten gives him a conflicted look. “I didn’t mean the Earth Kingdom,” he says quietly, “I meant the Fire Nation.”

Zuko stares at him, confused and aghast. “The Fire Nation,” he says slowly, “but, we’re not torn to shreds - we’re the most powerful empire in the world, Lu Ten, we’re defeating every other country in battle - our technology and legal systems are the most civilized and the most consistent-”

“I know that your tutors may have told you that, Zuko, but the truth is that war has consequences,” Lu Ten corrects gently, leaning forward onto the table. He has a strangely intense look in his eyes, like he’s seeing something besides what’s before him. “Husbands, wives, sons and daughters lost to battle leave hungry, lonely families, on both sides of the warfront. The Earth kingdom may be riddled with unrest and poverty right now, but outside of the Palace, the effects of spending all our resources on a pointless war is draining the public, the populace is starving, our soldiers are dying.”

Zuko feels something welling up inside him, a horror that shifts into anger. He stands abruptly, rattling the stool. “That’s not _true_ ,” he argues, voice coming out louder than intended. “That’s not - we’re rich, Lu Ten, from taxing all of our territories - the colonies are prospering - Father is the greatest ruler this country has ever had, and things have gotten better under him, they really have.”

“And who told you this, Zuko? Were they hired by Ozai, like the historians and the lawmakers and the judges and everyone else in this godforsaken palace-” Lu Ten’s voice has risen now, nigh to a shout, but he’s not aiming it at Zuko. Rather, he seems to be addressing the distant red-tiled pillar of the palace center wing, jutting up into the western horizon-line like an unlit torch. Zuko flinches at the suddenness of the outburst all the same, averting his gaze and taking a quick step backwards.

Lu Ten notices, and drops his voice immediately. He looks ashamed, for a moment, before speaking. “I’m sorry. That was - I shouldn’t have shouted. Maybe that’s too much about that, for today - let’s just have a game of Pai Sho, okay?”

~~

Two hours later, after Lu Ten returns to his quarters, Zuko ventures back inside the palace. He takes the long way back to his quarters, cutting through the kitchen and strolling through the vast red-tiled hallways. He passes by the advisors hall, placed in the central wing of the palace and shielded by massive twin oak doors, and hears a voice echoing through the panelled wood. Something about the tone of it, even with the words indistinguishable, tells him he should leave it be and keep walking.

But Zuko has never been one to trust his better instincts, so instead he tentatively steps closer, stepping up to huddle behind one of the pillars flanking the doors and listen to the muffled voices echoing through the stone. 

His father’s voice is the loudest, shouting and dripping with unbridled fury. “We _cannot_ let this boy go before a public audience,” Ozai is snarling, likely at some ill-fated advisor. “I refuse to let him preach to _my_ people from _my palace_ \- I am the king of this country, not that damned child, whatever the people say.”

“We can’t keep this under wraps forever, Your Majesty,” an advisor soothes. “We can control this, twist the story in our favor - Prince Lu Ten would not be bold enough to make any move to usurp you while you still hold the throne. Our people are loyal to their king, and _you_ are their king.”

“It doesn’t matter who their _king_ is,” Ozai growls. “He is their golden royal. They have Agni-cursed _idols_ of him in their homes! If I allow that boy before a crowd he will find some way to twist things, mark my words - he may be Iroh’s whelp but didn’t inherit his father’s idiocy.” 

“Your Majesty, with all due respect, the people know nothing about the circumstances of his survival,” the advisor says. “We can’t cover something like this up without rumors leaking forth. Any spare story of his survival would be like a crack in the facade of your throne. But if we propose this to the public the proper way - the golden child of the Fire Nation returns home, a representation of how this country is going to survive against all odds under your rule.” 

There was a roar of anger, and then a banging sound like a fist on wood. Zuko flinches, heart jumping in his chest, then scrambles away from the marble pillar like a rat scurrying from a broom. 

He returns to his quarters, but it takes the rest of the afternoon for the adrenaline to fade. He can’t stop replaying his father’s words in his mind, recycling them over and over till they’re garbled and faded: _‘I am the king of this country, not that damned child,’_ his father had said. Every time he replayed them they reminded him, sharply and uncomfortable, of the cold-fire note to Azula’s screams as she’d raged at him in the field the evening before. It had sounded like all the sharp parts inside her were pushing through for all to see, stabbing through the careful facade she’d worked so hard to create. Ozai and Azula’s anger had the same note to it, as though the rage in their voices would heat their words till they cracked, like glass over fire. Hearing Azula’s screams had sent a cold shock down his spine, one that rattled in his chest and made his heart skip a beat; hearing Ozai’s gave him a permanent tremor and a sense of deja-vu.

Even hours later, the uncomfortable comparison lurks in the back of Zuko’s mind. Where Iroh had found nothing but joy at the return of his long-mourned son, Ozai had found fury, one that had been eerily paralleled by Azula. It was though she was a mirror to Ozai, a perfect replica; both of them cold and removed until the facade began to crack and the cold heat of their anger started to leak through the mask. To them, Lu Ten’s survival was not a miracle and a heartfelt joy. It was another piece to play against in their endless mental matches of strategy, another potential competitor to pin down. They felt like the way Zuko did when he misstepped in a Firebending drill, startled and caught off-guard.

The longer Zuko thinks about it, the colder the memory gets. Sharper, more painful, the way the thought of Lu Ten’s death had been before his cousin’s return. 

When he sleeps that night, he dreams of Azula: four years old, with a smile on her face and lilies woven in her hair, tugging on his sleeve and begging him to play at war with her.

Five years later, and the war is dawning. Zuko cannot hide any longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tysm for reading, comments make my week!!! <33


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lu Ten is acting oddly the next time Zuko sees him.

Lu Ten is acting oddly the next time Zuko sees him. He’s a bit too preoccupied, a bit too slow; a clock with a twig caught in the cogs. Ticking a bit off beat. First he doesn’t notice Zuko’s entrance, then he offers to pour tea into a cup that’s already empty, and after that he spends a full minute absently blowing at the top of a teacup that’s already cold from hours sitting on the table by his bed. 

The two of them are seated on square cushions, a low wooden tea-table between them, and Zuko finds himself drowning in the silence between Lu Ten’s sentences. His cousin had demanded company at least once every evening, but here, sitting across from Lu Ten as he stares in to absent space and puffs at a positively icy teacup, Zuko wonders if he misunderstood the invitation and is overstepping his stay; clearly, Lu Ten has other things on his mind - as well he should, being prince of a nation at war.

Zuko is about to state stitch, then hastily bow himself from the room, when Lu Ten finally breaks the uncomfortable silence with an even more uneasy statement: “Your sister has changed, little cousin.”

Zuko startles and drags his eyes from a crack in the table-wood to look Lu Ten in the face. They exchange glances for half a moment before Zuko flinches and lowers his gaze once again, dipping his forehead slightly in deference.

Lu Ten does not appear to notice. “She’s very angry,” he says absently, “And does not appear to desire my company.”

There’s a pause, as Lu Ten stares into space, and then he bursts out a very out-of-place laugh. “Ha! That’s where Father would make a joke at my expense. I see you’ve not inherited his sense of humor.”

“Sorry,” Zuko says. The apology springs to his tongue instantly, practically an automated response.

“Don’t be sorry, little cousin,” Lu Ten sighs. He sounds weary, but not at Zuko. “One too many Western Dragons is the last thing this palace needs.”

Zuko gives a minute shrug, gaze still lurking at the edges of the tea-kettle, and doesn’t respond. Lu Ten notices him looking and reaches out, edges of his red-silk robes dragging up his wrist and exposing his forearm. Zuko glances at it, then startles and looks his cousin in the eyes; there’s an angry red handprint there, a child’s size fingers singed into the skin.

Lu Ten meets his eyes, glances down, and rapidly covers his forearm once again. “I knew I should’ve gotten that bandaged,” he mumbles, eyes fixed on a point in the corner. “Only I hate the medical wing, even without the warfront soldiers there to haunt it.”

“Azula burned you,” Zuko states, surprised by his boldness. Azula is not a subject that easily springs to his tongue in times like these.

“She got….irritated, with me,” Lu Ten says, words slow and clearly measured, like beats from a pendulum. “And lashed out. I’m sure were Iroh not as present to guide me, I would have had much worse fits of temper when I was her age.”

“She burnt the training fields a few days ago,” Zuko mumbles, averting his eyes once again. “And she tried to drown me in a well once.”

Lu Ten’s head snaps to face Zuko, shock spelled across his features. His mouth parts slightly.

“Father congratulated her,” Zuko adds, the words tumbling from him before he can stop them and singing him on their way out. “On her wrestling technique.”

“Spirits,” Lu Ten murmurs. “Agni have mercy. I didn’t know.”

Zuko presses his lips together and remains resolutely silent. Lu Ten shares the quietness with him, for a long and comfortable moment; then he breaks it with a sigh. 

“Perhaps I’m simply too used to understanding people,” Lu Ten mumbles, commiseratingly. “And children aren’t creatures meant to be understood.”

Zuko huffs half a laugh, at that, a nervous breath of agreement mixed with indignation. Lu Ten laughs with him, a kind smile that makes the teacup resting in Zuko’s palms feel warmer in the moment before it melts away and Lu Ten sobers.

“I should have been there, cousin,” Lu Ten says. Quietly, as though praying. “I should have saved you both.”

Zuko meets his eyes.

“I don’t know if I could have,” Lu Ten says, echoing himself. He sounds sad, a somber note hanging in the air. Zuko stares into his teacup and doesn’t respond.

-

The officials have come to a conclusion: the Prince is back, and the Prince must face his people. They call Lu Ten in to the war room the next morning clad in red and gold like dragon silk, and close the wooden doors behind him with a thud like echoing thunder; Zuko watches from behind a pillar, and shivers at the wind from the closing doors. He feels an echo of the chill he’d felt those thousand years ago, when his cousin had first been leaving for war. A finality, a turning point, a fork in the long-trodden road. 

Lu Ten is gone for hours, as Zuko is forced to trace the steps of his firebending drills in the training fields for the thousandth time. The nervousness brings an unsteadiness to his gait that his teacher scolds, but doesn’t punish - Zuko cannot guess what steadies old Madame Ayana’s hand, usually so quick to singe and spark at the slightest misstep. He is worn thin by the time he finishes, yet so full of brimming energy he feels he could set a wildfire with the slightest flick of a finger - _this is how Azula_ _must feel_ , crosses his mind, _only with less adrenaline_.

He finds Lu Ten in the courtyard pavilion outside of the war room, three hours later, clasped in his father’s arms. “I’m to go before the people,” Lu Ten murmurs, as he pulls back from the embrace to meet Iroh’s eyes. “And give a speech. It’s pre-prepared. They will not stand for any deviations from the script.”

“It could be worse, Lu Ten,” Iroh says. “It could be so very worse.”

“Your standards, dear father, are impossibly low,” Lu Ten murmurs.

Zuko leaves them be. He knows when he’s not needed.

\--

Zuko encounters Lu Ten and Azula in a stand-off that evening, when he passes one of the offices in the palace’s upper western wing on his way to cartography lessons an entire building away. He notices them by the voices, drifting from one of the half-closed office doors. Azula sounds agitated, angry; Lu Ten sounds pleading, as though he’s trying to calm her down.

“You’re talking down to me,” Azula is snapping, irritation practically dripping from her voice. “You think because I’m a girl I can’t handle it. I didn’t ask for you to baby me, I asked for you to show me war strategy. If you’re just going to totter around like my useless tutors I might as well just kill you and be done with it.”

“I’m not going to be threatened, Azula,” Lu Ten says. “This isn’t me babying you. This is my strategy, this is how I fought. I’m not one to send undue sacrifices into battle, and I don’t plan to teach you moves I wouldn’t use myself.”

“The solution here is obvious,” Azula seethes. “This war front you’ve set up - I can solve it in a manner of weeks if you let me use the plays I need! Your methods are longer, more laborious, more risky - nothing is guaranteed, nothing is certain - it’s foolish strategy, and it’s  _ weak.” _

“It’s called being a leader. You can’t act as though yours is the only life that matters, when you hold so many in your hand. If you can’t understand that now you certainly wouldn’t in the battlefield,” Lu Ten snaps. 

“One would think that among a child and a seasoned soldier, one of us would not be afraid to do what’s necessary,” Azula says, voice cold and singing. “But I guess you always were your father’s greatest disappointment disappointment.”

There’s a pause, then a laugh, off-kilter and confused. “Who told you that?”

“Told me what?”

“That I’m a disappointment.”

Azula scoffs. “It’s obvious. You’re cowardly, you fled from the battlefront, you and Uncle failed to take Ba Sing Se - Father  _ hates _ you, he thinks you’re both disgraceful.”

“Your father’s opinion is not of my greatest concern, Azula,” Lu Ten objects, sounding genuinely dismissive of the shift in topic. “My father is not yours, and would never dream of speaking to me in such a way. I am deeply sorry that Fire Lord Ozai does not possess the same goodwill.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Azula snarls, “That doesn’t matter, my father is the  _ Fire Lord _ because yours was too weak to challenge for the throne, Iroh does not  _ matter _ . He never has.” Her pitch is rising in tone, in frantic pitch - she’s on the verge of a full-fledged tantrum, now, and something about it leaves Zuko shaken. Her mask is slipping more thoroughly than before; she is no longer in control.

“The throne doesn’t matter,” Lu Ten says, voice soft and gentle. “My father matters.”

Azula screams once with rage and there is a stomping as she bursts through the door. Zuko flinches back, but she only brushes by him, a faint glimmer of something in the edges of her eyes, and makes a beeline down the hall.

Zuko watches her receding form for a long moment, the silence from where Lu Ten remains in the office ringing in his ears.

He follows. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is short and late and unedited but in my defense i am exceptionally busy and classes are a bitch.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko finds Azula in the nursery.

Zuko finds Azula in the nursery.

It’s an old room, one that hasn’t been used in years, and while the servants have diligently rooted the dust from every crevice and corner, the toys and assorted pillows remain huddled, ghost-like, about the room. They look like bodies, in the half-darkness, and the brittle edges of sunlight that creep from the shrouded red curtains aren’t half enough to brighten the dreariness. Wolfsheep wool carpet drapes across the wooden floors and low-sitting chairs ring around tables in the center. Zuko has to step around a rocking horse in battle armor that blocks the doorway in order to enter.

“Azula,” he calls, voice quiet and deafening in the silence of the room, and receives no answer. He steps up to the table in the center of the room, and glances around - at the cabinets, the cushions in the corner, the shelf of scrolls - before spotting her, huddled in the corner adjacent to the curtained windows, chin resting on her arms resting on her knees. She looks tiny, all the sudden, a miniature of herself. Like she’s really nine years old. Like she’s crying, Zuko thinks, for a disorienting moment, but no - she’s just staring, blank-faced, at the dragon tapestry adorning the opposite wall.

He is hesitant, as he steps up to her. Quiet, a prey animal on feather-feet as it approaches its predator; the caution makes him feel ridiculous, here as she slouches like a sleeping cat with her anger drained away, but the memory of the singing burns heralded by her rearing fury, sudden and snarling, keeps him hesitant in his approach. She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t indicate she’s seen him - not as he steps up to stand next to her, nor as he slides down the wall nearest the corner to sit by her side, nor as he watches her from a tilted chin, eyes flicking along her sloped posture, disorientingly free of armor.

“Azula,” he says again, quiet and hesitant. “Are you-”

Her gaze snaps to him so quickly he freezes, pinned down, and quiets immediately. Satisfied in his deferrence, she turns back to quietly observing the tapestry of dragons winding about each other on woven, fading thread, cast in grayscale by the darkness of the room around them. Zuko joins her. There’s no point being the one to disrupt this sacred, peaceful silence.

And that quietness reigns for a while, gently softening the edges of their interaction. The two of them simply sit, blending with the stillness. When Azula at least breaks the silence, it’s with a cold, indifferent tone belied only by the quietness of it, as though she as well recognizes the sacredness of the stillness in this space they occupy.

“He’s like Iroh,” she murmurs. “Lu Ten is.”

Zuko tilts his head slightly, in a hesitant acknowledgement he knows she catches by the flicker of her visible eye. 

“They’re both not meant for royalty,” Azula continues. “They don’t have the mindset for it. Neither do you.”   
  


The words sting like a decades-old injury. He has heard them dozens of times and each time they leave him a little more cracked. He doesn’t respond.

“I don’t mean that as an insult,” Azula clarifies, off-handed. “I really don’t. There are other ways to be useful to the throne than holding it. You would doubtless make a good ambassador, or a representative to the people. Soften our necessary tactics in the eyes of the populace. But that’s - it’s the sort of role a king can’t hold in the time of war, you know?”

“Lu Ten fought on a battlefield,” Zuko reminds her quietly. “He led soldiers, he survived the warfront-”

“Exactly,” Azula snaps, and her voice rises somewhat in pitch. She quiets immediately, as she continues. “He fought on the warfront and yet he  _ still _ can’t see it the way he should - he doesn’t have the perspective, even with a mockery battlefield built from toy soldiers and false pretenses, he cannot see the soldiers for what they are.”

“What they are,” Zuko repeats blankly.

“Tools,” Azula insists. “Tools. They were sent to war to win our empire this war, to maintain the warfront and ensure us victory, to sacrifice their lives for the good of the Fire Nation - it is an privilege, to die with the glory of this nation, and it is the only honor worth having in times like these.”

Zuko turns to stare at her. “They’re people,” he insists. “The soldiers. Lu Ten knows that, he fought with them, that’s why he can’t treat them like pawns in some sort of  _ game _ \- people can’t be toys for royals to play with, Azula, whatever Father tells you-”

“Father didn’t teach me this,” Azula growls, turning to face him as well, and like that, the calmness is broken. Zuko feels itchy, again, watching her fingers for a sign of smoke. “I had to  _ learn _ it, Zuko, because one of us had to be the strong one. This country needs a royal and Father needs a child capable of following in his footsteps, and if there was every any other option available to me I must have missed that opportunity while I was busy keeping myself from becoming like you, useless and helpless and tossed aside at every opportunity because you can’t handle treating this war like the cosmic  _ game _ it is-”

“It’s not a  _ game _ , Azula!” Zuko pushes away from the wall, sharply, so he’s half kneeling before her as he stares at her, wide-eyed, mouth half open. “This war isn’t a game, Lu Ten nearly died and you still can’t see that-”

“Yes it  _ is _ ! Agni, you’re such an idiot sometimes, Zuzu, you can’t even see what’s right in front of you. You’ve played Pai Sho with Uncle so many dozens of times and listened to him analyze his every step and move to ensure the victory and we’ve stood together outside the war-room and listened to Father plan the steps of his next invasion and you still can’t  _ use _ that information, can’t put it together, because the scale may be different but they’re the same Agni-damned thing!” Azula is half shrieking, now, surged forward into a half crouch opposite Zuko. “This is a game, it has to be a game because that’s how you win - strategy, like any Pai Sho match except it’s a million pawn pieces wide and your  _ life _ is on the line. I had to think like Father or think like you so I chose Father, and I don’t regret it, because here I am able to see this war like it bloody damned well is and here you are still snivelling like a coward and a weakling at the thought of any sort of strategy that doesn’t appeal to your good-hearted kindly senses!”

“I’m not a  _ coward! _ ” Zuko screams, and he’s on his feet before he knows it, looking down at Azula. “You’re the coward, Azula, if you’re so scared of seeing things for how they are that you’d rather pretend it’s all just some game without any real stakes!”

“Maybe I am,” Azula snarls, and she’s flung herself up to meet him like a snake rearing its head, pushing into his space. She takes him by the front of his robes, pulling his face towards hers so her every snarl seems to shake into the core of him. If she set him alight right now he would be ashes in mere seconds. “Maybe I am a coward,  _ Zuzu _ , but I’m still alive, and that’ll be more than you’ll be able to say if you can’t change like I did very Agni damned soon!”

She’s crying.

She’s crying, Zuko realizes, the information dawning gradually. As if in slow motion. Her words are frantic, shrieking and half-sobbed, and tears prick at the edges of her eyes.

He stares at her in silence for a long moment, as the fragile flickers of light from the curtained window glint off of the water in her eyes like a predator’s pupils, shining lantern-bright in the shadows. Then, in a movement that she doesn’t bother to try and block, he swipes her hand from the front of his tunic and pulls her into a hug.

Azula’s crying, as he holds her, face buried in his shoulder, and she feels so  _ small _ \- so young and so scared. Zuko is hardly twelve years old and she has felt like a looming threat as long as he can remember, and he finds that now he cannot summon upon that fear that she had so long inspired in him.

“We lost him, Zuzu,” Azula mumbles, into the cloth of Zuko’s shirt. “We lost Lu Ten because he couldn’t think the way Father wanted and now I’m going to lose you too.”

“I’m not going to war, Zula.” Zuko whispers. “I’ll never go to war, I swear. I’ll never go.”

Azula’s voice is quiet, when she responds, but steady. Certain. “I won’t let them hurt you like they did him, Zuko,” she murmurs. “I’ll never let them take you away.”

Zuko just holds her close, and some part of him, against all logical reason, hopes that she is right. 

~~~

Lu Ten gives his speech before the people three days later, and Azula stands by Zuko’s side in the royal booth of the Caldera City auditorium. Below them, the smooth wood stage gleams in the sun, and behind them the red tile edges of the bowl-shaped building glint blindingly bright; a hundred people of the Fire Nation nobility, all summoned to take audience before the Prince, roar their approval as he enters the stage. 

It is the first time Zuko has been present for a royal spectacle of this magnitude. It is the first time he has heard the nobility roar with approval and uproar and surprise, first time he has heard the thumping of gilded, expensive boots stomping against wood. 

It will not be the last.

Ozai is there, in the booth, standing at the front with his chin held high so that he looks down at Lu Ten, alone in the center of the auditorium, through veiled eyes; behind him, Iroh, Zuko and Azula are aligned in a neat row. 

Zuko expects Iroh to look pleased, or proud, but no: as Lu Ten advances on the podium he looks troubled. Head dipped, slightly, as if intimidated by the glare of the sun above. Azula, by Zuko’s side, has a triumphant smile slotted into place across her features, satisfied and confident, shoulders thrown back with her hands folded neatly behind her. A sly half smile quirks at the edges of her mouth as Zuko glances at her, then fades away so quickly he half thinks he imagined it.

She’s been different, since her breakdown in the nursery. Not much, but enough to set Zuko comfortably off-rhythm. She seems less hostile, less fragmented, her voice less a snarl. Blunted at the edges. He’d accidentally interrupted her firebending practice, that morning, and she’d merely snapped her fingers to cause a spark and rolled her eyes at the mistake. It’s pleasant, but in a way where the absences keep echoing; Zuko continually expects her to snap.

He turns his gaze back to Lu Ten, who has begun to speak. It’s a painfully obvious script, one full of references to the grandness of the Fire Nation and reassurances of his faith in the Fire Lord; he defends the war, praises the soldiers, proclaims death for the Fire Nation an honor. His voice rings through the hall, yet still sounds oddly hushed. Like a man whispering his death rites, he drones out the painfully hollow speech. 

It does nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the crowd. When he is finished the noblemen shriek and whoop, cheering as loudly as when he’d entered. Their jubilation at seeing the golden prince of the Fire Nation restored borders on mania; Zuko can only imagine how the wild frenzy may be mirrored in the rest of the kingdom, when the news travels. What will happen to the idols, he wonders; the shrines in houses and temples? What will happen to the burial spot, where they had held his funeral? What will happen to his companions at war, who mourned him and left him for dead?

He wonders if it will be received as ecstatically as it is here, where the excitement is so contagious he feels himself half swept up in it. Here, in this auditorium, it becomes easier than ever to believe the idea that had been shifting steadily out of reach since Lu Ten’s return: that the glory of his nation, his birthright and people, is unparalleled and unmatched in its superiority. That the soldiers on the warfront are privileged to have the honor to fight for him and his father and the royal court’s mission to conquer every kingdom under Agni. 

As he watches Lu Ten recede from the podium and meet his father on the floor of the auditorium in another tight embrace, the wind catches their half-murmured exchange and whisks it his way. 

“I have disgraced myself beyond repair,” Lu Ten murmurs, and Iroh only clutches him tighter.

“You have done all that you could,” Iroh soothes. “All that you could.”

The image of glorious soldiers on the battlefront fades from Zuko’s consciousness as quickly as it had been inspired. Honor seems a fragile thing, Zuko reflects; and fragile things rarely survive the weight of war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i sold my soul to write this and also failed algebra so like bls leave commetns ily
> 
> EDIT: ALSO!! i kinda wanna change this fics title so uh im gonna it used to be "perspective" and now its gonna be "these walls we build and call them home" so sorry abt that


End file.
